Facilitating Organized Crime: The Role of Lawyers and Notaries

On Monday, 31 October 2005, 36-old Dutch lawyer Evert Hingst was murdered in front of his house in Amsterdam. Among Hingst’s clients were many noted and alleged criminals, including John Mieremet, who was once shot in front of Hingst’s office. After this assault, Mieremet claimed that Hingst had tried to set him up. Mieremet was murdered 3 days after the liquidation of Hingst, on 2 November, in Thailand. Hingst, a fiscal specialist, had been accused of assisting criminals to launder their money abroad. He was imprisoned for several weeks after police discovered three firearms and a large sum of cash during a raid of his office in 2005. A suspect of money laundering, membership of a criminal organisation and possession of firearms, Hingst gave up his profession as a lawyer in July 2005. He had previously been arrested on charges of forgery of documents in 2004.

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